My Wabi-Sabi Angel

"Absence of proof is not proof of absence."  18th Century Poet William Cowper

It all started with one of those random thoughts - ruminating tirades actually - that can sometimes over- take one in the process of getting dressed in the dark on a cold rainy morning. In a Joycean sequence of oddly connected thoughts I remembered growing up annoyed with my birth name (Delia is my middle name and one I much prefer). What triggered the memory was an incident yesterday in which someone who was reading my name from a chart mispronounced it, as usually happens. Not only do people get the first name wrong but the surname as well. I suppressed a sigh and responded politely but inside was this gnawing feeling of not really being me when I hear this alien name spoken aloud. Apart from the lifelong frustration of people getting the name wrong, the saint whose name I bear and whose excessive desire to 'serve' ruined her health and brought on her early death at age 24, was held up to female children as the "ideal" way to lead one's life. (No wonder I embraced Taoism and Buddhism instead!) Now the memory of yesterday's annoyance had brought the tediously virtuous saint to mind and intruded on my morning. After a moment's thought,  I wished her well and once again turned my attention to other matters.

My Wabi-Sabi Angel

A few hours later the saint's name came to my attention again , this time in an article I was reading on a Llwellyn publication website about Angels. The article is by Chantel Lysette of whom I knew nothing until I read the article in which she related a possible Angel encounter that happened to her in a churchyard, the church itself bearing the name of my "patron saint". Of course. Coincidences do get my attention!  The saint in question would not be found in the top ten or even top fifty list of  most popular saints and yet here she was intruding on my early morning and now again in the midst of an article on Angels. I happened to glance at the computer clock just at that instant: 9:44. Time prompts like this happen to me daily and recur in many different contexts.  Darned if the author didn't go on to discuss her own experience with numbers that she associates with Angels, numbers like 4: 44 and 444 coming up again and again in her life. I also encounter multiples of 11 daily in the form of 'time prompts' from digital clocks (11:11, 3:33, 4:44, etc.), on store receipts (77.77), on car licence plates (65 92 74...), on the totals at the petrol station (44.11), etc.  I, too, have associated these numbers with an Angelic energy, one that I often wish would be a bit more specific about what the message is supposed to be. To me it feels like a kind of protective presence but that could be pure projection on my part. There is no way to know for certain what, if anything, the number thing means but I can't see any harm in tentatively ascribing it to what feels like a sentient energy. In any case, the realisation was dawning on me that all of these little things were adding up to synchronicity.  What was the link?  My stained glass Angel?  I love my stained glass Angel but I have no name for her so I tend to think of her as the 11:11 Angel. Something finally clicked and I suddenly turned my attention to my stained glass Angel and really LOOKED at her for the first time.  I mean, I've had this Angel since 1997 and she has moved house with me six times since then but I never really SAW her until now. Like RIGHT NOW.

I have photographed my Angel several times but the photos do not scan well so I decided to use other images of Angels to illustrate this post. Below is a very similar Angel to mine. It's from a website called Aniyah's Angels. This Angel is more professionally executed than my Angel but this is the closest example to the style and design of my Angel that I could find on the web. The artists offer a wide selection of colour combinations.

This free-standing stained glass Angel above can be found HERE

My Angel is not physically perfect, something I had previously failed to notice - unless perhaps I picked it up subliminally at the time I found her. The colours of my Angel's dress are muted and her wings are colourless frosted glass. As I gazed at her just now I began to notice some of her peculiarities: her skirt of muted lavender and pale blue panels is longer on one side than on the other.  The soldering of the lead joins is not the work of a master but of a student. Other things that are obviously meant to be symmetrical, aren't.  And that's when it 'hit me between the eyes', literally!  I was seeing her through my 'third eye',  the organ of spiritual discernment. And the recognition finally dawned on me: she's a Wabi-Sabi Angel!  And had I not just published a post on May 25 about being a Wabi-Sabi psychic, one who sees the perfection of our life's path including all the detours, potholes, and barriers we must work around? How wonderful that my lovely Angel is perfectly imperfect, a visual reminder that life unfolds in the way we need for our greater growth and spiritual development to proceed.

My dear Angel is also a genius, I'm convinced. She contrived for me to find her in one of the unlikeliest places on the planet in a city I had not wanted to move to and she was well hidden on a dusty under-shelf of unsold and rejected items in a shop storeroom. But despite all that, she called out to me in such an unmistakable way I knew I was going to find my Angel on that day and in that particular shop full of stained glass sailing ships, stained glass windows, experimental pieces, and a lot of kitsch!  Had I stopped in the main room of the studio and not continued my search, I would never have found her. But she implanted such certainty in me that I kept looking. The artist who owned the studio seemed quite surprised that I wanted the dusty and rejected Angel. Now, 17 years later, I finally understand why. He saw her as imperfect and not the best work that his apprentices had done. When no one bought her at Christmas, he had hidden her away not expecting anyone to buy her.

The one thing I haven't mentioned yet is that I love her face. Actually its just a shape as in the photo above,  like an up-side-down tear drop made of pale beige-gold striated glass. There is something compelling about this featureless face. There is just this lovely oval shape through which I feel I can see something of the eternity in which her spiritual counterpart dwells.

This morning has been a miniature journey from the house-cleaning 'catch up' day I had planned to this epiphany about looking and really SEE-ing that which IS right in front of me. It's nice to be awake at last. Thank you, Wabi-Sabi Angel.

© Delia O' Riordan 2012

If you would like to learn about Edward Burne-Jones or Andy Lakey 's Angels you'll find books on both HERE.

Link for When Angels Whisper (article) by Chantel Lysette: HERE

Images: Angels by E.C. Burne-Jones, courtesy Wikimedia Creative Commons.

Finding My Perfect Angel

I love the idea of Angels. Having been reared in the Catholic tradition, I suppose that was a given, in a sense, but even after leaving the church at age 17 Angels retained their appeal for me. And why not? Angels represent all that is best in sentient life. They embody our noblest aspirations for ourselves as individuals and as a species. Whether they are merely psychological projections or beings from another dimension who occasionally cross our paths, they seem to fulfill a very important function for us: Angels are bearers of Hope for the human race. Let's face it, if there is nothing apart from our material world and if death is total annihilation, is existentialist heroic resignation our only alternative to murderous anarchy? Something in me - call it immaturity or even insanity if you like - finds the Universe and its many parallels far too complex and vast to exclude the possibility of realities that co-exist with ours but are as yet beyond our technology to detect. Eminent physicists have followed the mathematical route to the quantum domain in which things far stranger than Angels are possible. In a multi-verse of at least 10 dimensions and only instability above 11, there is room for all manner of life forms so perhaps the various beings that humans have caught glimpses of  and attempted to portray images of are not 'merely products of imagination' - presuming we know what imagination IS...

Finding My Perfect Angel

Human attempts to render likenesses of a class of beings that could be identified as Angels show great similarities in widely scattered cultures over millennia.  Winged Hindu Asparas, Babylonian Winged Guardians, Angels painted on the walls of Pre-Christian Pompeii, Zoroastrian Persian Angels, even the principle of Shamanic journeying by entering the body of a bird, all carry some vestigial germ of even more ancient memories of creatures who moved freely through the air and had the power to appear at will and disappear when they had done what they came to do. Characterised as Messengers from the Divine amongst 'the peoples of the Book' (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Zoroastrians), Angels have had a largely benign relationship with humans. Notwithstanding the story of the "Fallen Angels", it's difficult to equate them with any negative traits. Perhaps even the so-called 'fallen ones' are working off their Karma by coming to our aid if we call on them! Regardless of how you imagine them to be, there is likely an Angel in your vicinity right now. If you feel the need to find a physical representation of that Angel, close your eyes and invite the Angel to come into your mind. What you see will be unique to you and if you are creatively inclined you might want to make a papier machê image of what you see. If art is not your forte, pay attention to any colour that the Angel shows you. Don't be surprised if the colour is not a pastel shade! Angels radiate many different colours and shades; given their etheral existence they could appear in endless variations depending on what their human charges need to be shown at the time. In my case, I wanted a Christmas Angel, a really beautiful Christmas Angel that I could have in the office where I do my psychic readings.  I didn't see her as 'my Angel' but as a generic Angel that would act as a guardian for both my client and me during readings. In that way the door was open for Angelic energies to express themselves in the most appropriate way for each client. What I found was an exquisitely made Christmas Angel like those on the Angel Tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art In New York. She had the very image of spiritual serenity I had been seeking. She never failed to put my clients - even agnostic ones like me - at ease with her calming presence.

The Quest For My Perfect Angel

I did look for an Angel that seemed to connect with something in me but it was years later that I found her.  My husband were living temporarily in a cottage on the grounds of a hotel whilst we searched for a place to rent for a year. I became aware almost immediately of a 'pull' toward a stained glass art studio located within easy walking distance to the hotel grounds. I ignored the 'pull' at first in favour of dealing with the practical realities of finding a house, arranging to have our furniture and belongings released from storage and delivered, etc. About a month went by before I felt the time was right to visit to the art studio. It was a sunny afternoon in May and when I entered the studio a kaleidoscope of colour filled the space to bursting. Everywhere I looked there was something interesting and beautiful. I was enjoying all of this but I kept feeling there was something I was supposed to be looking for - and then I realised what it was. Somewhere in here was my Angel, but where? I started looking at each object in earnest now. I toured the entire shop which was divided into many rooms but I saw no Angels. A stained glass studio without an Angel? Impossible. Yet, none was visible. I was about to give up when I felt that 'pull' again and this time I followed it into what appeared to be storeroom - for 'seconds' perhaps? There was nothing of interest in view but still I felt my Angel was here. Then I spotted an old work table in the farthest corner of the room and I could see it had two shelves underneath so I went over to it and strained to see what was on those dark, dusty shelves. In the very back of the bottom shelf, almost completely hidden was an Angel. She was lovely. Her gown alternated shades of pale mauve and sky blue. Her face - just an oval with no features - was a pale gold and her halo a soft shade of yellow. Her wings were made of frosted glass and semi-folded behind her. She was free-standing so I could have her on my desk. I had to laugh! I had asked the first time for a 'generic Angel' when I bought the Christmas Angel but this faceless Angel truly fit the bill! She was beautiful not because of features artifically added to her but because she had no features. This was the purest representation of the archetypal Angel that I had ever seen. The shop owner told me that was the only Angel that hadn't sold during the previous Christmas season so she had put her in the storage room. She was the only one the artist had made without facial features which is probably why she hadn't sold.

I had a different theory about that. Here I was half a world away from home in a strange new city with no friends or even acquaintances around me and just co-incidentally there happened to be a stained glass art studio two blocks from my hotel which just happened to have only one Angel hidden away on the bottom shelf of table in a storeroom, an Angel I had been looking for for years...

Angel images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

© Delia O' Riordan 2012

Wabi-Sabi Psychic

One of the aspects of psychic states that I have explored over the years is the apparent connection of psychic awareness with practices such as meditation and Japanese art forms.  My own psychic experience seems to arise from a state of 'allowing', of receptivity, without seeking in any way.  In fact, 'trying' to psychically read a person or situation stops the whole process dead for me.  What this has taught me is the value of accepting as opposed to willing, receiving as opposed to seeking, and remaining in a neutral state as opposed to reacting emotionally to the information or images I pick up.  However, I have sometimes sought to express in visual form the state of 'attentive being' that characterizes my psychic state. It is partly a desire to unify the various forms that my psychic experiences take and partly because I enjoy being in the psychic state.  Apart from daily meditation, I sometimes take out my Sumi-e ink and brushes, put on some Koto music that I find conducive to the practice of Sumi-e painting and practice breathing out as the brush touches the paper and makes it mark. I was privileged to study under a wonderful Japanese teacher of Sumi-e,  the late Tomoko Kodama, whose approach to this ancient art was based on the state of co-ordinated movement of breath and brush that gives the best Sumi-e paintings an almost tangible energy. From the moment one fills the water dish, unwraps the ink block and begins to mix the ink, there is a sense of concentrated energy that is deeply calming. Rhythmic breathing begins right then and continues in an uninterrupted sequence as the painting emerges. I cannot describe how satisfying it is to reach the point of final exhalation when a painting is finished and one emerges from this slightly altered state of being back into the 'Muggles' world.  Always, a bit of magic comes back with me just as at the conclusion of a psychic reading.

Wabi-Sabi Psychic

Another Japanese art that induces a state of deep awareness is Ikebana, the artfully art-less arrangement of plant material and flowers that I find instantly absorbing and conducive to entering a meditative state. Ikebana is considered one of the Zen arts so I guess the meditative effect is not surprising. Nevertheless, there are moments when Ikebana calls out to me and I cannot focus on anything else until I have done the flower spirits' bidding. The sense of responding to what the materials want to express is uncanny to say the least. There seems to be a moment in the life of certain plants and flowers when they are ready to be immortalised in a photo of them arranged in Ikebana style. I see this process as one of honouring the spirit of nature as art.

Art In Stone

For those who prefer to contemplate a natural scene the art of the scholar's stone known as Gongshi (photo below)  in Chinese and Suiseki in Japanese can transport one into the realm of the gods instantly. My affinity for stone formations goes back to earliest childhood when colored pebbles could occupy my attention for hours. The discovery of stones with fossils in them added a whole new obsession that has lasted my entire life. It is one of the blessings of a more open world that so many Oriental arts have found their way into so many other cultures. I remember attending a showing of incredibly beautiful Suiseki collections in Stockholm some years ago and another in Amsterdam a few years later. I can imagine nothing more enticing than the prospect of getting up close and personal with natural rock formations like the one pictured here.  The Japanese genius for creating small scale natural tableaux is one of their greatest gifts to world civilisation. Far from being an art confined to the cogniscenti, Suiseki is available to anyone with a love of stone and an eye for exceptional beauty. Again, the mental and physical state of absorption makes time irrelevant and deepens one's connection with both matter and spirit.

The Japanese version of scholar's stones has spread around the world largely as a result of a few dedicated students of the art, such as Felix Rivera who seems to be regarded as the 'father of Western Suiseki'. As he makes clear in his book, Suiseki is inseparable from the philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, the appreciation of the natural.  As Rivera has observed, the emphasis in Suiseki is on entering into the reality of the rock, allowing its beauty and essential character to inspire the viewer. In most cases Suiseki rocks are cut from larger emplacements. The selected stone may be enhanced only by cleaning, polishing and mounting, usually on a bespoke wooden base.  To explore some of the variety and exquisite beauty of the practice of Suiseki, River's website is here:  Home

The Wabi-Sabi Connection

When I was formally introduced to the Wabi-Sabi tradition in an art class, suddenly the potential for the various natural materials that I loved to be brought together inspired me to experiment by combining Sumi-e, Ikebana and Wabi-Sabi. At its root, W-S is a way of seeing beauty in imperfection as in the beautiful but asymmetric  and randomly decorated pottery pictured at left. In a society obsessed with the idea of 'perfection' - physical, athletic, mechanical, etc., Wabi-Sabi is a breath of fresh air. Although it can take many forms, perhaps my favourite expression of the W-S principle is in Japanese pottery, like Shino and Oribe ware and the work of contemporary potter extraordinaire Nishihata who created the vase pictured below. Wabi-Sabi is a way of life rather than simply a style of expression. The various forms of Wabi-Sabi from garden design to pottery is a way of living attentively in the natural world. Once you begin to see through Wabi-Sabi eyes, your new perception of beauty will guide you at every level of living that you will permit. I find that contemplating any natural object or piece of art that is based on the principle of Wabi-Sabi - not meddling too much with the materials - enhances my ability to separate myself from judging, from categorising as 'good or bad', ' right or wrong' and just appreciating What Is. It is a natural way to induce the state of Mindfulness that is the path of the Wabi-Sabi psychic.

If you would like to explore any of these subjects you can find a variety of resources HERE.

© Delia O' Riordan 2012 

Catch A Falling Star

Last night as I watching TV, something made me get up and go out on to my deck.( I estimate the time was somewhere between 8:10 and 8:15 because a programme I wanted to see at 8:15 was just beginning as I stepped back into the house.)   It was a beautiful night with a light wind blowing in from the Atlantic, sparse clouds floating very high up, and lots of stars, nebulae and galaxies on offer for unlimited gazing. I often do this at night - spend a few minutes looking at the sky and thanking whatever is there to be thanked for the privilege of being able to see, being located in a relatively un-lighted area, and for having a second storey deck as a viewing platform. I always feel very fortunate and grateful when I am on the deck surrounded on three sides by mountains and with the sea in front of me.  What was different last night was that I felt I was being urged to go out at precisely the time that I did. It wasn't something I considered and then decided to do; it was definitely coming from something other than my conscious will. I've learned not to resist these 'urges'; they always seem to have a purpose.

Catch A Falling Star

As on the deck and looked up at the universe spread out above me something suddenly caught my eye. It was a flash of extremely bright, beautiful orange light. It was traveling very fast and seemed to be arcing as I watched it. I wasn't thinking about what it was, I just followed it with my eyes until it disappeared.  It's been a very long time- perhaps decades -  since I have seen a 'shooting star' which is perhaps explains why it took me a second to realize what I had seen. The image  on the right of a Bolide an exceptionally bright meteoroid is very close to what I saw.  When the penny dropped, I laughed out loud. I distinct feeling that this natural - and in some places fairly common occurrence - was a direct line to the capacity for joy that I have rediscovered in recent years. The shooting star made me happy. Very happy!

What was it that had urged me to go out and look at the sky about a minute before the shooting star lit up the sky perfectly in line with the direction I was facing?  What was it that knew the meteor was going to cross my field of vision and got me in position to see it? I certainly wasn't expecting to see a shooting star. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. So what had happened to make me go outside in time to see something that I hadn't seen here before despite many hours of 'star gazing'? Do we have something akin to the radar used by birds to sense their way around in the vastness of the sky, some as yet undocumented neurological ability to anticipate events - even as far distant as thousands of kilometres away in space? Or was something else 'prompting' me to go outside at just the right moment?

The Time Prompt Connection

I think it is important to ask this question because earlier in the day I had the experience of the 11:11 time prompt. I've written previously about this phenomenon. One of the strange aspects of it is that I< first became aware of it when I glanced at a digital clock on a DVD machine in my living room and the time was 11:11. I thought nothing of it until it happened again at 4:44 that afternoon, at 11:11 PM that night and again at 4:44 the following morning.  What was going on all of a sudden with these highly synchronized events? Were they a signal of some kind? As time passed, I had reason to interpret them that way.

As it happened, the life of someone very dear to me fell apart not long after I started getting these 'time prompts' and started to pay attention to any feeling that accompanied them. In the 20 years since 11:11 started showing up in my daily life, I've noticed that most often the 'feeling' of 'a sentient presence'  accompanies it. Good grief! I just glanced at my computer clock because of a distinct 'urge' to look right then and it was exactly 1:44:44 PM!  Right. OK. Whatever it is that urged me outside last night to be utterly transported on a wave of sheer joy at seeing the shooting star, just did it again as though in affirmation of my feeling that these 'co-incidences' are actually something else.  Now, if I could only figure out what...

The book on meteoroids cited in the post is available HERE.

Image credits: Perseid Meteor Shower and Bolide Meteor courtesy of Wikimedia.

The Houseboat Philosopher

So how do we live in the Now without being neglectful of the future? Watts would answer that it's the wrong question. There is nothing we can know of the future until it arrives and it arrives a nano-second from now. And now. And now. But that is not what we mean by 'the future'. We mean next week or next month or when we 'retire'. The future we are concerned with is a potential state of being that we may or may not live to see (at least in physical form). We are finite and to us the future seems infinite because we cannot see an end to it, an end to time itself. This is the great paradox: we are aware enough to ask questions but not aware enough to answer them, except by acknowledging that although we are aware of a 'self' we cannot see that 'self' at all. It is not visible to us. All that we can see is the physical vehicle through which the 'self' operates. We are an idea in our own heads for that is where the 'self' seems to reside, isn't it? We "hear" ourselves think. In fact, we hear that inaudible voice of the 'self' incessantly.  But that voice is not us because if we stop for a moment and listen to it ,we must ask 'who is it that listens'?  This is the pivotal point in both psychology and philosophy, the apparently separate Observer that is behind everything that we identify as ourselves. There is another "I" behind "me".  The "I" behind what I call 'me' is the silent witness, that aspect of us that is aware of being aware of being. That "I" is consciousness, what Arthur Koestler called "the ghost in the machine".  But what is Consciousness? What is it made of?

The Ghost In The Machine

What we understand scientifically of the nature of reality at this juncture is that everything that we experience in the universe is vibration, energy, the invisible background that generates what we experience as the universe. That energy generated us. But this energy is not visible to us except when it becomes dense enough to for us or for our instruments to detect. But how does it become dense? What is the motive force that causes energy to form into visible matter? That is the Higgs Boson question, the search for 'the God particle' or more properly the wavicle since before it becomes a particle it is both wave and particle, a potential without form. That fact that we can contemplate such a concept is itself amazing! We owe the ability to imagine such realities to several generations of 'natural philosophers' (now called physicists, but I prefer the older term) and mathematicians working at the theoretical edge of the possible. Impressive stuff. But, the essential insights into the 'nature of reality' that science now claims as its exclusive turf had its beginnings long, long ago in the work of the Rishi of ancient India. 

Ghost Hunting In Ancient India

The original atomic theorists were the authors of the Rig Veda, the repository of the collective wisdom of the Vedic tradition of deep contemplation of the nature of 'reality'. Many thousands of years before Newton proclaimed that energy could neither be created nor destroyed but only changes form, the Rishis posited the notion that everything is made mostly of nothing! That all there is arose from what they called the 'Void', the home of the Higgs Boson for which scientists are presently seeking. The Void is the source of all. We are part of the 'all' and therefore part of the 'Void'. Nothing can exist outside of the Void or Source; imaging that we are separate from it is an illusion. Stars are born and die. Planets form and are swallowed by 'Black Holes'. But everything is 're-cycled'! Nothing is permanently destroyed - the theory of entropy notwithstanding. (We may yet find that what tiny amount of energy that we think is 'lost' to 'entropy' in atomic fission and other forms of energy release might be some other form of dark matter we have to identify. It may even be the case that the 'lost energy' is subsumed into another dimension…)  The significance of the Void for us is that our essential being is invisible. Consciousness cannot be observed directly; it can only be inferred on the basis of observable actions in which we and the universe engage. We cannot observe 'energy' directly; we can only infer its existence from its actions. Consciousness and energy seem to be synonymous, the same 'stuff'. We are - more or less - Conscious. We are Energy. Even our bodies of matter can only change form from the way we see them now to complete reabsorption into nature, untimely the atoms of the body including the bones will be reduced to nothingness. Obviously, of the two - body and consciousness - it is the latter that is really US. Or as Alan Watts would put it "You are It", an expression of pure consciousness that is temporarily having a physical experience.


Hide and Seek Is Not Just For Kids

The irony is how un-necessarily difficult we make that experience! 99% of the suffering in the world is human inflicted, ultimately self-inflicted because we can only act on the basis of our awareness of our existence. The problem is that, as conscious beings, we can play games with ourselves! We can 'shut down' consciousness through denial, through rejection of life, through addictions that distract us from reality, through any number of dead-end practices to avoid the inevitable knowledge that we don't know who we are! But we don't know who we are because we don't take time to find out! We take 'consciousness' for granted. We don't see what a miracle it is! We invent religions to punish ourselves with in the hope of eradicating the uncomfortable fact that being conscious is all there is and all there needs to be! We under-use consciousness all the time. It has so many ways of interacting with the universe that we cannot hope to exhaust them. However, most humans use only a minuscule fraction of their consciousness. They limit their awareness to the concrete world and a pointless game of one-up-man-ship with each other. The anxiety we feel is the anxiety we generate by creating elaborate systems for the exchange of things that make us dependent on other elaborate systems for the exchange of more things, ad infinitum.  Why?  To feel 'secure'!

Security is the opposite of life. Life by definition changes - constantly! Nothing is the same as it was a nano-second ago. That is now history and we are here NOW. We cannot create 'security'. We can create a social and economic structure which would make 'security' un-necessary. How? By using the Consciousness we have and putting what we can see to be true into practice: We are part of interdependent organism that is the universe and possible multi-verses. We are not separate from 'reality' or 'existence', we are IT. We only feel anxious and insecure when we exert ourselves in the direction of separation from WHAT IS. Most of our suffering comes from some form of resisting WHAT IS. WE ARE WHAT IS!  

Think how different our lives would be if we saw ourselves not as bodies competing with other bodies for space and sustenance, but as points of consciousness in an infinite ocean of consciousness. The Infinite is Eternal and the paradox is that it is always changing and never destroyed. We understand almost nothing of our own universe and how enormous it is, how incalculably timeless it is.  But given that we are experiencing our universe through both our bodies and our minds and are aware of both through Consciousness, is it not obvious that we are meant to use all of ourselves to explore this universe? We cannot hope to do so in our current human form but we may be able to do so by extending our awareness, our consciousness outward into that universe. Whilst we cling to the physical side of life to the exclusion of greater awareness, we increase our levels of anxiety and insecurity. That is, we choose to live in fear. We can choose not to do so by adopting a different way of thinking and being in the world. That is The Wisdom of Insecurity.

If you would like to read any of the books mentioned above or look for others on the same topic Click Here:  http://astore.amazon.com/psychicdeli01-20

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Once in a while I feel myself in need of a large dose of Wisdom. At such times I seek out the company of a favourite spiritual philosopher. I 'discovered' Watts by accident. Or so I thought at the time. I was in the university library reading up on Hindu philosophy for an upcoming exam and I happened on a few quotations attributed to Watts. His manner of writing was direct and witty, a nice change from the dry texts of other scholars. Watts had the gift of penetrating to the heart of matters and illuminating profound truths in an understated way. Over the next few years he would become my favourite companion in the pursuit of 'enlightenment'. I found that over time Watts's appeal for me only deepened.

The Mindful Philosopher

Since the 'crash' of 2008 millions of people have lost their jobs, their houses, and the old certainties that a 'college degree' guarantees you a lifetime of employment. Watts believed that much of suffering that we experience as a result of such 'crashes' is actually the result of flawed thinking on our part, both as individuals and as a society. Watts deals with the issue of impermanence and change in all of this books but The Wisdom of Insecurity focuses deeply on this issue which is at the centre of existence itself.

No one is exempt from feelings of fear or anxiety. We all experience such feelings from time to time and in a crisis, we may be in a permanent state of apprehension. What Watts discovered through his own experience and in studying ancient spiritual traditions, is that we have the means to free ourselves of the influence of fear by learning to think differently. We all want to be 'happy'. What most people mean by 'happy' is a state of perpetual sameness, an absence of pain or deprivation of any kind, a sort of stasis in which nothing ever changes. This is so because change involves 'loss' or at least exchange of one thing or state for another and by definition we would have to let go of the state of 'happiness' in such situations.

The Great Paradox

As Watts puts it:  Because consciousness must involve both pleasure and pain, to strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is, in effect, to strive for the loss of consciousness. Because such a loss is in principle the same as death, this means that the more we struggle for life (as pleasure), the more we are actually killing what we love.   Usually we are so focused on avoiding pain (as loss) that we are unaware of this paradox. As Watts goes on to say "...the greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing"! (Emphasis mine) "Music is a delight because of its rhythm and flow. Yet the moment you arrest the flow and prolong a note or chord beyond its time, the rhythm is destroyed.  Because life is likewise a flowing process, change and death are its necessary parts. To work for their exclusion is to work against life"! (Emphasis mine).

Time and Suffering

The real source of our emotional suffering is rooted in our concept of time. We worry about future events or dwell on past ones. Both practices result in our loss of the one thing we actually have: the present moment.  "The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings the past and the future are not as real, but more real than the present".

Surely we must learn from the past and plan responsibly for the future, right? Yes, but only to the extent that we are able to do both without losing the present in the process. How can we do that?  I will take up this question in tomorrow's post. 

Meanwhile, if you are interested in learning more about (and from) Alan Watts, visit Delia's "A List" Amazon Shop HERE.

Photo credit: Portrait of Alan Watts, Wikipedia, Creative Commons.

The Magician, The Hermit, And Me

Amazing Psychic Reading

The Magician, The Hermit, and Me

The psychic reading I did for a first time client named Andrea may be the most amazing case I ever had.  When I opened my front door,  my first impression was of a dancer and I felt certain she was also a yogini. Andrea was of medium height, slender, graceful, an almost ethereal presence and ageless in her appearance. I had the feeling that time somehow did not touch her, an old soul most likely. There was a deep calm about her despite her animated personality. She might have practiced some form of meditation in addition to yoga but at that point I had no idea of her real background. Both impressions would later be confirmed. I asked Andrea if there was some aspect of her life that she wanted me to concentrate on and she told me in general terms what it was. I picked up my 'reading crystal' (no magical powers, just something to help keep me focused), closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Because Andrea was not defensive in any way, the reading went very smoothly and she got the answers she sought. At the end of the reading she asked me if I could also read for her husband -  but not in person. He was working long hours and a phone consultation would be preferable. I considered this for a moment. I couldn't see any reason why not, so I agreed and set a day and time for him to call.

The Magician, The Hermit, And Me

Andrea's husband was named Greg and that was all I knew about him prior to the reading. On the evening before the phone appointment with Greg, he suddenly came to my mind and immediately I began receiving a flow of images and impressions. This was not unique in my experience; I often received such impressions even from people calling on the phone but this was a little different from most previous experiences of its type. The images I was seeing were highly unusual and the rate of flow of the information was much faster than usual. I scrambled to make notes of it all so that I wouldn't 'lose' anything that might be significant to Greg. 

The Magician, The Hermit, And Me

The scene that opened before me involved several individuals and one who was not visibly present. I seemed to be standing behind what appeared to be the important figure in this tableau so I never saw his face. The scene I was observing was a meeting between this figure in front of me and two or three other men standing opposite him but out of my field of vision.  The 'invisible' participant seemed to be behind me but at a great distance away. I had the distinct that he was "from the East". He seemed a benign presence so I decided to ignore him for the moment and focus on the man with his back to me. That's when I noticed the unusual clothes he was wearing. 

To continue reading click: http://psychic-delia.com/?p=1175

Psychic Readings:  Destiny

Destiny and Your Life Path: How can a Psychic Reading help you to uncover your Destiny and find your Life Path? Before we address that question we need  to consider the question of destiny and free will because they would seem to be at odds with each other to the point of absolute contradiction. How can we know how much true autonomy we have and how much is the effect of some... STOP.  Just as I wrote the word "some" I glanced at the clock on the computer. It read 10:11. So, what  is the significance of that?

Psychic Readings: Destiny

Time prompts like this one are a form of synchronicity. In my case, in addition to events and people, they are often connected with the number 11 and multiples of 11. They happen to me (and millions of other people) daily, sometimes a dozen or more times.  I don't take this kind of 'sign' personally; I think it is a form of shorthand that 'higher' or 'universal consciousness' uses to help us find our Destiny, one tiny step at a time. I can't prove my theory - yet - but in a planned Webinar on Synchronicity I hope that the collective wisdom of other people who have experienced synchronicities large and small will shed some light on this fascinating aspect of human life.

Destiny or Free Will?

In terms of Psychic Readings and Destiny, how can we know how much true autonomy we have and how much is the effect of some plan, pattern, or non-human 'will' such as Destiny or even if such things as Destiny exist?  For questions like this, I think it is useful to consult not only intuition and experience, but also any scientific and, therefore verifiable, work that has been done on the subject. Thanks to the pioneering work of physicists like Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and Wolfgang Pauli, our understanding of the universe has moved beyond the mechanistic model to the quantum model in which everything exists in a state of potential. Matter exists as potentially both particle and wave before it becomes one or the other. What governs this 'choice' at the cosmic level is not yet known but we do know that in scientific experiments the experimenter affects the outcome by observing it. There is a subtle level of interaction between the consciousness of the experimenter and the molecules under observation. This suggests that the universe is a kind of field within which movement at the sub-atomic level has effects everywhere at once. The significance for the debate about free will vs. destiny is that both are true at once. Choice exists at the level of infinite potential. By choosing one path over another, we select a Destiny from within the field. But, since we have choice at our disposal all of the time, we have the possibility of changing one destiny for another. The quantum principle of non-locality means that the information contained in our choice is registered everywhere instantaneously. This is an enormously important point because it suggests that thought has ethical implications! Anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, the desire to dominate others, are not only nasty human character traits; they carry energy that adds to the existing field of similar energies. That means that we can abuse the gift of consciousness with thought, a daunting responsibility.

Destiny and Life Path

At the microcosmic level of our private lives when our lives are 'on-track' and <there is no conflict between the choices we have made so far and the potential that is still in front of us - or more accurately, all around us - we enjoy a state of harmony and balance. But what about those times when our lives are in chaos? Too much to do and not enough time to get it done. Sudden job loss. Unexpected illness or death in the family. The list of things that we deal with everyday is seemingly endless, yet we have the same opportunity to make a choice every nano-second of our existence. In these circumstances, however, most of us are ruled by the events taking place around us. We re-act at every level: with our physical bodies where we register tension, emotionally when hormones are released, intellectually when we try to make sense of what we are experiencing. It is at these times that we can benefit from a psychic reading that focuses on Destiny and Life Path.

Book Your Personal  Destiny Reading

Over the past 20 years I have had the privilege of working with many people who suspected that the life they had was not the one they were 'destined' to have.  Usually these clients came to me when they had stalled out just as they approached a crossroad where a decision must be made. They felt they had exhausted all the usual avenues about what to do next.  Very few felt that the life choices they made in their early 20s were valid ones for a lifetime. The future which seemed to be settled for them at that time, was now uncertain. If your life has been thrown off-track by events around you - the economy, family issues, job worries, health issues, etc. - you may be facing an opportunity with far-reaching possibilities. I do not believe we are meant to suffer or to be unhappy in our lives. I think we suffer because we've lost touch with - or were talked out of or forbidden to be - the person we were born to be. A Destiny and Life Path Reading can reveal the gentle nudges we sometimes miss, nudges that can get us back on track or can even help us find the track for the first time. It's never too late to discover the Life Path that leads to your personal destiny.

To book a Destiny Reading:  www.psychic-delia.com  or contact Delia directly here: delia.readings@gmail.com

To learn more about the topics in today's post, visit Delia's "A List" Amazon Shop HERE.

© Delia O' Riordan 2012

Rewire Your Brain For Love

Delia's rating: ✪✪✪✪✪ 5 out of 5

I just finished Marsha Lucas' "Rewire Your Brain for Love" and already it is a hit as far as I am concerned. For humans, the 'final frontier' - assuming there is such a thing - must be our consciousness. Some of the most exciting science being done today is in the field of consciousness research. In "Rewire Your Brain" Marsha Lucas brings together the findings of leading edge research into the relationship between mind and brain and how 'mindfulness' practices can literally re-wire neuro-circuits in our brains, establishing new connections that have a direct and often dramatic effect on people's mental, emotional and physical lives.

Beginning with Candice Pert's work on psychoneuroimmunology in the the late 70s and early 80s, the impetus to unravel the mystery of consciousness has steadily increased. Science is primarily pragmatic; it is based on physical observation, logical extrapolation from the data anbd testing under various conditions. Consequently, much of 'brain science' is necessarily based on neuro-chemistry, brain anatomy and physiology, and observable phenomena tracked with fMRI and PET scans as well as the more basic EEG. Previous gnerations of theorists assumed that the human brain was fully formed by the time physical growth was complete and thereafter a sort of entropy took over causing more and more brain cells to 'die' as we age. A certain amount of cell loss does happen but it is not the whole story. Perhaps the most shocking and significant advance in 'brain science' is evidence that new thoughts create new neural pathways and connections, awakening cells that had been in a semi-dormant state. This evidence of continuing cell adaptation in the brain points to the necessity to better understand the neuro-chemistry of thought. The practical application of this research comes from the ancient Eastern practice of 'mindfulness', a way of focusing attention for optimal co-ordination of mental and physical activity. Mindfulness is both an attitude and a practice that causes the human brain to synchronise its activity in a way that is unique, observable, and repeatable. At last, science can document what lifelong meditators have known for millennia: the mind can be tamed, aimed and and reclaimed from the chaos of mental 'noise' that constitutes much of human mental life. Dr. Lucas' book is well worth reading both for its practical applications in our lives and for the ongoing process of understanding human consciousness. This one's a keeper.

Rewire Your Brain For Love is featured in Delia's Happiness Shop  HERE.

© Delia O' Riordan 2012

www.psychic-delia.com

delia.readings@gmail.com

Maya Calendar Mystery Solved

A Boston University professor in the Archaeology Department, William Saturno (love that name given the Mayan context), has revealed what looks like a small "office" that once  housed the town scribe in the lost Mayan city of Xultún  first discovered about a hundred years but only now being excavated. The town scribe's job was to record - in paint on stone - the chronicle of his Maya community. In a sensational issue of June 2012 National Geographic Magazine  (on sale from 29 May) the amazing Mayan city buried for a thousand years in thick jungle reveals never-suspected details about Mayan life portrayed on the walls in shades of ochre, red, and black. The paintings are of both Mayan Glyphs and portrayals of people but the primary purpose of the site seems to have been the calculation of the various Mayan calendrical cycles: ceremonial/lunar, solar, and orbital periods of Venus and Mars. Professor Saturno comments that the walls of this dwelling were treated like a kind of 'blackboard',  a work space for record-keeping and calculating significant cycles such as eclipses. The more picturesque murals are the first known examples found in a Mayan dwelling. Until now it was thought that Mayan murals were used only for ceremonial purposes. This finding is reminiscent of Etruscan wall paintings from roughly the same time period but on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

Maya Calendar Mystery Solved

Each of the three intact walls reveals a unique story. Opposite the entrance to the dwelling (north wall), is an image of a man that takes up part of three walls. It is assumed that the image is meant to be that of the local 'king' but Saturno points out that it could be the scribe himself since the figure is holding a 'pen' in one hand. Also on the wall are four long numbers in glyphs that seem to indicate numbers between 1.3 million to 2.5  million days - literally astronomical figures that stretch about 7,000 years into the future.

On the wall to the left  (west) of the back wall there are three male figures. They are painted in black but wearing white loincloths. In addition, all three wear medallions and mitre-like head dresses decorated with a single feather. On the opposite wall (east) is another black-painted figure but faint outlines of others are still visible. This wall is covered in columns of numbers including numbers representing how to count as well as calendrical equations, some lunar and some solar. There are even inscriptions - in red no less! - that appear to be corrections to some of the calculations! That the space was used for teaching and learning seems beyond doubt.

So, the Maya did not believe the world would end on 21 /12/2012. An over-enthusiastic theorist in the 1970s and 1980s,  Jose Arguelles,  got carried away with a pet - and totally mistaken - theory. Had he left it at that - as a theory - he would have been fine. Instead, he and several his friends found their own non-evidential arguments more convincing than the deeply informed judgments of Mayan scholars and they went on to spawn what has become something of a 2012 mini-industry.  No doubt the discovery of an older source than the Dresden and Paris Codices used by Arguelles et al will have little effect on those who are committed to their ideas despite proof to the contrary.  Thank goodness we still have archaeology, history, and common sense to correct erroneous notions that take on a life of their own in the cyber-age.

For more information on Maya art, history, or culture, why not browse the 2012 Shop HERE.

Picture credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons

© Delia O' Riordan  

www.psychic-delia.com

delia.readings@gmail.com

Mindful Re-birth: Return of a Tulku

Unmistaken Child is the documentary of the search for and identification of the Tulku of an eminent Lama. This documentary follows the entire process and it took twenty years to make!  Beginning with the Dalai Lama's assignment of a former student monk of the dead Rinpoche, we witness the meticulous search across Tibet for the elusive child who carries within his consciousness an awareness of his former life as a Lama and great teacher of Buddhism.  Some Western viewers of the film were shocked at the separation of the little Tulku from his birth family to be educated in a monastery. In Tibetan Buddhism however, the families of a Tulku are seen as having accepted this difficult Karmic challenge prior to their current incarnations. It is an enormous honour and daunting responsibility to bear such a child and the parent's realisation of the child's identity means that the family are being offered the opportunity to hasten their own liberation by accepting the painful reality of separation.   No family likes to see a child leave home at any age but for one so young it is particularly wrenching. The parents can say No, but once the child remembers who he was previously, he realises that his life belongs not only to him but to his people as well and ultimately it is the child who decides if this is the path he will follow. No one ever claimed Buddhism was easy...

The film mentioned in this post are available for purchase or rental HERE.

© Delia O'Riordan 2012

www.psychic-delia.com

"Things Change, Kundun!"

             "Things Change, Kundun!"

Buddhism is not easy; it's not all expressions of peace and good-will. Buddhism is the most profound 

commitment to achieving the state of mindful non-resistance to What Is, the state in which all illusion disappears and one is absorbed into the Void - being conscious without thinking, being one with the energy that underlies all existence. The first step toward enlightenment is the recognition of Impermanence as the abiding truth of existance. So enormous is the challenge of enlightenment that Buddhists are in awe of Siddartha's advancement beyond the necessity for re-birth. A being who achieves full liberation from re-birth and the suffering that attends it, is as huge as the universe and participates in the creative power of  Reality. That is a mind-boggling perspective and that is why Buddhists create huge statues of the Buddha and perform ceremonies which to Western eyes look like worshipping Buddha as 'God'. The failing is not in Buddhists - even the most naive and 'primitive' - it is in our blind assumption that the only form of reverence is the monotheistic practice of 'worship'.  Similarly, Buddhists do not 'worship' the Dali Lama; they revere him as the voluntary re-incarnation of the spirit of Buddha for the purpose of assisting all sentient beings to reach the state of enlightenment.  Volunteering to come back to physical existence as a Dalai Lama is deemed to be the highest form of compassion there is and Buddhists are intensely grateful to the Dalai Lama for returning to help all sentient beings to achieve The Great Liberation. Kundun is an excellent introduction to Tibetan Buddhism and the child who was identified as the re-incarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. In this lifetime he is known as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

The film mentioned in this post is available for purchase or rental HERE.

© Delia O'Riordan 2012

www.psychic-delia.com

Psychic Readings vs Cold Reading

Today I am taking on the die-hard "skeptics", those who - without reviewing the scientific research on the subject of psychic abilities - insist that all psychics do what the skeptics call "cold reading".  When I was younger the term "cold reading" meant one thing: going into an audition with nothing prepared (cold) and giving a professional reading from whatever script was handed to you. The phrase had meaning in this context. However, over the past two decades the term has been hi-jacked by professional debunkers whose lack of evidence for their claims mirrors precisely their lack of knowledge of the solid research that has documented the reality of the human '6th sense'.  What the de-bunkers mean by 'cold reading' is the ability of some people to reel off general statements, deductions based on the subject's manner of dress, expression, 'body language', eye movements, and other observable behaviours to project a plausible but unsubstantiated 'cold reading' of the subject. Are there such 'cold readers'? Of course, there are; they are usually 'stage psychics' who perform before an audience. The phony psychics - the 'cold readers'  are dead easy to spot - if you listen closely to what he (usually cold readers are male) is saying and ignore the response of the subject.  Because 'cold readers' rely on conventional interpretations of manner of dress, posture, hair styles, make-up, etc. their 'revelations' are commonplace - statements that would 'ring a bell' with most people. 'Cold Readers' say nothing profound, nothing that could be contradicted - they stick to the obvious and they study the subject intensely for signals of when something they say 'registers'. The other thing "cold readers" depend upon is speed. They never spend much time with any one subject so when they detect that they have exhausted the possibilities with one subject they ask another to volunteer and the whole process of close scrutiny by the reader of the next subject begins again.  The point of speaking quickly is to deny the audience time to weigh the quality of what the reader is saying in terms of vagueness, general applicability, or sheer guess work.  Obviously, the qualification for this line of work is being 'quick on your feet', speaking confidently, ignoring 'misses' and jumping from one topic to another without giving the subject time to reflect or ask questions.

Psychic Readings vs Cold Reading

By contrast,  the quality of a psychic reading is determined by accuracy of detail, specific applicability of detail to the individual being read, and revelation of information that can be verified, such as names of those around the subject, physical characteristics of those around the subject,  dates and places of events that can be checked in public records or in the historical record, use of nicknames used only within the family of the subject and intimate details about the manner and circumstances of death of the subject's loved ones. Any of these sorts of information would be impossible to ascertain by a 'cold reader'  in front of a random audience. But what about "cold readings" of people in a one-on-one with a psychic?

Face To Face Psychic Readings

No two psychics work in exactly the same way so I can't generalize here; I can only relate how I conduct my psychic readings. As a general principle, for face-to-face readings, I prefer not to have any information beyond the name of the client and most readiings  are conducted on a first name only basis so as to preserve the client's privacy to the greatest degree. After greeting the client, we adjourn to my office. When the client is comfortable and ready to either record or take notes of the reading, we begin. I may gaze at the space around the client for a moment or two to 'read the aura'. Sometimes I see colours, sometimes I see scenes or objects, and sometimes I receive physical impressions such as areas of 'weakness' or vulnerability in the body that I then convey to the client. Often these are places where the client was injured or had surgery in the past. Confirmation of these sorts of facts re-assure the client that I am receiving information psychically not doing a "cold reading".

In the next stage, those who have passed on but are around the client make themselves known by giving me their names. Usually these are people close to the client but sometimes it will be someone from the client's distant past or someone  else who is still alive who is entering the client's space in the near future. I find that this phase of a reading reveals or instigates a chain of synchronicities such as the client having just recently heard from that old friend who had been out of touch for decades or unscheduled encounters with such people that occur after the reading. When I no longer detect the presence of such individuals, I move on to the next phase of the reading.

Trance Psychic Reading

At this point, I close my eyes and enter a light trance state. In this state, souls who were close to the client in life come through to me with information for the client. Much of this information refers to the soul who has passed on so that the client can identify her or him.  Next the soul may indicate the presence of other souls who want to communicate with the client. I pass on whatever I receive but the client is also free to ask questions of the soul who has passed on. Much insight is gained from these reunions and not infrequently the souls communicate information relating to challenges or crises faced by client in the immediate present or they may relate only the outcome of the situation to relieve the client's anxiety. Each soul withdraws when it has communicated what it feels is important and another may come forward. When I sense that there are no others who want to connect, I move on the next phase.

Client Questions

In this phase of a reading, the client can ask specific questions about matters of concern in any area of life: work, money, career decisions, family relationships, personal future, future of those around the client, outcomes of situations that are currently unfolding, etc. The client is in full control of this phase of the reading and I merely pass on whatever impressions I receive. It is important to remember that the information a good psychic conveys does not come FROM THE PSYCHIC; IT MERELY COMES THROUGH THE PSYCHIC.  For the psychic this is an impersonal process no matter how intimate the information that is relayed to the client. Genuine psychics are not manipulative, we have no reason to be.  Genuine psychics know that we are just conduits, like radio receivers, for information that is meant for others. The psychic's Ego does not come in to it because we are aware that  whatever comes through is not coming from us but from - for want of a better expression - the Universe and that all power that exists comes from that same source not from a human. Having an amazing psychic reading is not an 'accomplishment' for the psychic; it merely means that on that particular day, at that particular time, the psychic's attunement to the Universe was such that the quality of information was extraordinary. It's not about US; it's about the information and how it can help a client in her or his life. If anything, being a party to this process is a humbling experience.

The Real Deal Psychic

So what about my gripe with "cold reading"?  As a professional psychic I would like to describe what I do as reading people "cold" - that is, without any personal information other than a name at the time I do the reading. However, since the de-bunkers have hi-jacked the term "cold reading", I am stuck with having to explain how what I do differs from the "cold reader".  The less I know about a client, the better. The only exception is with the anxious, fearful, or somewhat hostile client whose negativity can disrupt or inhibit the flow of information. In such a case,  the even more impersonal tool of numerology based on the client's date of birth helps to 'break the ice' and put the client more at ease so that I can proceed with the trance reading. I hope this clarifies the difference between the "cold reader" and the genuine psychic for those of you who want to have a genuine psychic reading as opposed to being part of an entertainer's bag of tricks.

The books cited in this article are available HERE.

© Delia O' Riordan 2012

www.psychic-delia.com